The present invention relates to crowd screening for the detection of hidden prohibited articles, such as concealed by terrorists, and more particularly, to a method and a system for monitoring access by detecting searched-for articles, such as bombs, before allowing access via the passage.
During the last decade, a large and ever-increasing number of explosive-carrying terrorists blew themselves up among random or selected victims, often killing and inflicting heavy casualties to their intended targets and to passers-by, and also causing severe material damage. Existing devices and methods for the detection of explosives carried by terrorists achieve only partial success.
Nowadays, guards for the detection of terrorists are positioned in front of the entrance to shops, restaurants, and public buildings. Evidently, access monitoring is also necessary for controlling the entrance into buses and trains, and in general, the entrance into public transportation vehicles.
Guards usually scan each monitored person by operating hand-held devices, such as metal detectors, or have people pass through a detection gate. In addition, personal belongings, such as purses and bookbags are searched through. FIG. 1 depicts the present art, in which a crowd 11 of individual persons 13 wishes to pass from an exterior side EXT to an interior side INT via a passage 15 entered in a partition 17. An operator 19, or guard 19 handling a manual device 21 is charged with the scanning of each single person 13 before allowing crossing to the interior INT, via the passage 15.
The presently used terrorist uncovering scheme is dangerous, since a terrorist most often blows himself up when believing he has been found out, to kill guards and crowds of queuing-up individuals. This practice exposes security personnel, which have to come close to a potential suicide bomber, to high risks, which might impair their effectiveness. Although U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/026,384 by Fisher D., which is incorporated herewith in whole by reference deals with this problem, the sensors recited therein are at some distance from the monitored person.